


Broken

by MoiraiThanatoio



Series: House of Odin [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Backstory, F/M, Gen, So much retconning...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoiraiThanatoio/pseuds/MoiraiThanatoio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had broken them each in some way... </p>
<p>(The Asgardian edition of WTH happened between the movie and this series, complete with character introspection.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Loki**

The Hulk dropped him like so much offal. Thor, sneering at his pitiful collapse, simply immobilized him with Mjolnir. 

He was not even worthy of glorious battle. 

Ignominious defeat was his, but he faced it without acceptance. 

Screaming his rage, Loki struggled against the heavy press of the hammer on his chest. It was set just low enough to shorten his breath, just low enough to allow him to turn his shoulders and bear witness.

The Hulk laid the fallen Iron Man much more gently upon the pavement. The arc reactor was dark; the hero was silent. 

Panic among his fellows as Loki jeered in triumph and pleasure. To at least have taken one of them with him into defeat!

But then, as the armor was ripped away, Thor’s accusations as the Iron Man did not breathe… did not live... 

“Look!” His Asgardian shield-brother bellowed into his face. “Witness how you have slain kin!”

***

Loki woke himself screaming.

The screams echoed back upon him through the cave system. Screams of fear for a fate that had not come to pass…

In silence, Loki assembled and donned his armor, readying himself for the new day. Each dawn broke the same. The nightmare, the screams, but each day he regained his control and faced his task. 

Redemption… Not so much an easy prospect when one has so deep a stain upon their fate. 

Prepared for another day, Loki chewed upon the dried fruit of Idunn’s harvest. He needed no light to find the cavern where he started each day. It called to him. The blood and pain, the suffering called to him. 

It called for vengeance.

Loki knelt in the torso shaped clear patch within a pool of dried blood and called forth his magic. Once again tying it to the responsibility for the tortuous act, he sent forth the tendrils to find those guilty. 

Those who deserved to pay for their actions. 

And when the magic had found another, after so many had already paid, he walked in silence from the cave. Past the scars of bullets, past the char of fire against the stone, past the restless souls of those who had already paid for their actions and the bright spark of a willing sacrifice, until the burn of the morning light could find his face. 

Turning his features to the rising sun, he ignored the burnt-out husk of the former camp. He ignored the half-sunken remains of those who had died on that day. He ignored the desert as it encroached to reclaim the land. 

It was beneath him. 

He was a god. Of Asgard by choice, of Jotunn by blood, of the House of Odin by acceptance. 

This, his first task, to bring to justice those who would have destroyed the royal line. 

**Frigga**

The most painful visions were those of truth. 

Her vision encompassed the arena of battle known to Midgard as New York City. The giant green warrior deposited Loki upon the filthy ground. The child of her heart was raging in madness. While the child of her body prevented his shield-brother’s escape, the green warrior took the air once again in a mighty leap.

Frigga watched closely, reassuring herself that the heir yet lived, as Anthony’s face was revealed. He did not breathe, had not until the green one had roared his disdain for such a fate. 

In the vision, she wept. She wept as the Man of Iron was stripped from his frame. She wept as his comrades struggled to revive him. She wept as their simple healers swept him away. 

Having no physical form in this vision of the past did not prevent Frigga from reaching out in a fruitless attempt to comfort Loki as the truth of his actions broke him even further. She, as a mother, could understand. 

To know that he had attempted to slay his own child was the most grievous wound obtained that day. 

The vision twisted.

Frigga stumbled in the formless mist of transition. The surface of Midgard was gone and the halls of Asgard were reshaping around her. 

A council of the great kings was ongoing… She could feel the power in this moment as, for the first time ever, Midgard was seated as an equal in the Nine Realms.

And Frigga wept for the possibilities that still existed.

***

When she woke, the bed linens were stained with her tears. It was not well known, the visions of past and future that visited her in the night. But there was truth echoing in her dreams. 

“I do not know how to ease your grief, my Queen.”

Frigga raised her head, meeting Odin’s gaze. “My grief is my own counsel, Allfather.”

Odin’s features twitched for a moment before he sighed deeply. “I sense I am yet unforgiven.”

She rose up, her night clothes pooling around as she sat upon the bed. “Asgard’s king counsels that forgiveness is earned, not requested.”

He met her gaze calmly, the rage of his failures with Thor and Loki well past spent. “Then such is my task.”

**Heimdall**

The desperation had been clear when Thor had appeared on the shattered bifrost. Mjolnir strung at his belt, Tesseract in one hand and Loki’s bonds in the other, his prince had bellowed for the healers. 

A battle of words had raged there, right out in the open, until a vial of powder from Idunn’s finest had been bestowed upon the prince. Within the hour of his appearance, the Allfather had sent Thor back to Midgard with this precious bounty. 

A gift for the worthy.

After his departure, Heimdall was standing on the bifrost ever at his post. His newly unfettered gaze sought the eye of his King, glancing over the weeping prince collapsed at his feet. 

Odin had met his gaze without flinching, knowing that all had been revealed yet unrepentant.

And Heimdall had simply bowed his head, for the flaws of a king were not his to judge. 

When Odin lifted his youngest child into his arms for the long walk into the royal halls, it had not halted the weeping. In that moment, Odin had not looked like a king… He had appeared solely as a father. 

***

Heimdall’s memories were unforgiving. The knowledge that had been hidden from him until that day on the bifrost was undeniable. 

He had never before accepted such impossibilities in his gaze. That there would be gaps, unknown spaces through which an enemy could slither, was unacceptable. To know, even deeper, that those gaps were manipulated by his trusted king…

Heimdall shuddered, standing tall and strong at the shattered end of the bifrost.

He had believed Loki irredeemable. While guilt existed on all sides, Heimdall was accepting his portion of it to bear. 

A Midgardian child had been born with the potential of Asgard. A child that had been marked of the royal line. A child that was no longer young in the realm of Midgard, but well on his way to conquering his world. 

And Heimdall had seen none of it. 

Rather, he had seen but not known. For Odin had hidden it from him. 

**Thor**

The vial tilted in his hand, but nothing poured forth. It was empty, the blessing and benediction it had once contained had vanished. 

Thor had failed. 

He tilted, tripping over his own feet as Mjolnir pulled itself from his belt. He was no longer worthy to bear such a weapon. 

The precious bounty must have been lost somewhere in his trip back to Midgard. His grip must have failed. His honor deemed unworthy by fate. 

His kin, his heir, was dead. 

Thor clutched the lifeless body to his chest and roared his defiance to an uncaring reality. 

***

His bellow still echoed in his ears as he sprung fully from his rest, feet planted apart and Mjolnir coming to his hand. 

The weight of the hammer was reassuring in its surety. The heft told him that he had not failed. He was still worthy.

And his kin yet lived. 

The lights in the room raised slowly, a voice issuing forth from the walls. Jarvis, proving himself worthy to be the guardian of warriors, spoke, “Mr. Odinson, you are present in Stark Tower, the city of New York, Midgard. Local time is 5:23.”

Thor breathed, concentrating on his center as his tutors had counseled so long ago. Pacing to the great windows of this dwelling, he stared out at the light of pre-dawn.

He had not failed. The gift of Idunn had worked. The powder had drawn Anthony far enough back from death to preserve his life. Slowly, it had worked its magic on his system. Anthony had lain in what the Midgardian healers named a coma, but he had eventually woken. 

And when the last dusting in the tube had been stolen to speed the healing of the Son of Coul, he had pretended not to see. 

“Friend Jarvis, where is Anthony?”

The answer came as soon as he finished asking. “Mr. Stark is in the main lounge.”

Thor dressed quickly to face the day. He knew that it would be much more pleasant after he had reassured his senses that his kin yet lived. 

**Sif**

“May I bring you anything more, my Queen?”

Frigga gazed upon her with understanding. “You are not my servant, Lady Sif.” 

The gentle reminder of her rank burned alongside the guilt. “I have chosen to serve until I deserve my place again, my Queen.”

The stare went deeper than her skin and Sif dropped her head to stare at the floor. It, at least, did not judge her. 

“If you must, then you may deliver these tinctures to the healing chambers.”

Sif curtsied, taking the basket away with her when she left. Her steps only faltered at the doors to the Hall of Healing. 

They seemed coated in blood, though the gold gleamed brightly. It was the blood of her memories, the blood from where Loki had torn at his skin to excise his demons. The blood of the first healer who had attempted to treat the prince…

The healer had killed herself after attempting to salve the damage on his psyche and accidentally absorbed it instead. 

He was not blameless! Her pride screamed at her without mercy. Sif swallowed harshly, stepping into the hall. She blinked away the damp memories of that healer’s body. 

No, Loki had not been blameless. But neither had they… 

Their treason, for it was treason to disobey the proper Regent, had been subtle at the time. They had not been specifically ordered away from their path. Sif had only realized how desperately wrong it had all gone when Loki attempted to kill his shield-brother. 

Mindlessly, her steps had led her deeper into the Hall than required. Only the rarest of injuries were treated in these depths. For within, time ran sideways to allow treatment of the deepest wounds. 

Sif kept her feet beyond the sigils that marked the deepest rooms of the Hall. She dared not risk crossing that line, because with all advantages were carried a risk. 

And this room would only release the injured when they were fully cured. 

There was no predicting what scar, mental or emotional, would be perceived by these deep magics. Sif could have found herself trapped. The healers could only enter after the most extreme of preparations. 

And some never returned. 

She bowed her head, turning to retrace her steps and stopping to deposit her burden with the dispensary. They accepted it with quiet words, respecting her vigil of service. 

Sif continued her way through the palace, taking small tasks as found. After seeing what a Midgardian could accomplish, she had deemed herself unworthy of her weapons. She would not lift them again until she had found her redemption.

**Odin**

Odin sat upon his throne, unwittingly echoing a contemplative pose once assumed by the youngest of his sons. Gugnir was a heavy weight at his side. The magic he had wound through and upon the weapon of the king flexed in his perception. 

He was no longer a king of glorious battle. 

The Chitauri world had been a sobering reflection upon the capabilities of Midgard. It was not young Anthony who crafted the weapon, but it had been he who guided it so deftly into the depths of that world. 

Perhaps it had been too long that they, him among them, had disregarded the realm of Midgard as a backwards place. It was whispered among his warriors, none desiring to attempt his wrath, that the destruction of their enemies marked the advance of the younger race. 

But Odin did not disagree.

There had been no vengeance available. The sick taint of the magic that had twisted within Loki was wiped clean of the Chitauri realm. 

Disturbingly, Odin did not know if this was the achievement of the weapon or if the sorcerer had fled. 

“My King.”

Odin looked up, acknowledging the guard with a nod. 

“An emissary has arrived from Svartlheim.”

Gesturing the emissary to be brought forward, Odin wondered how his gift had been received by the youngest member of his house. Perhaps it was time to deepen the connections between Asgard and Midgard.

**Author's Note:**

> There are mentions and customs that have intentionally not been explained yet. Most of these will be answered in the next part which will immediately follow on from Thor's section of this part.


End file.
